Hillary Clinton: I refused to ‘attack’ Palin for ‘being a woman’

Hillary Clinton spoke to NBC's Cynthia McFadden in an interview to air Tuesday on Nightly News.

Hillary Clinton refused to go along with a request by the 2008 Obama presidential campaign to attack Sarah Palin immediately after she was tapped as Sen. John McCain’s Republican running mate, the former secretary of state revealed in a new interview airing Tuesday.

“The day she was nominated, the Obama campaign did contact me and asked me if I would attack her,” Clinton said in an interview with NBC’s Cynthia McFadden, airing in full tonight on Nightly News. “I said, ‘Attack her for what — for being a woman? Attack her for being on a ticket that's trying to draw attention? There'll be plenty of time to do what I think you should do in politics, which is draw distinctions.’”

Video: Hillary Clinton refused to go along with a request by the 2008 Obama presidential campaign to attack Sarah Palin the day after she was nominated as Sen. John McCain’s running mate, the former secretary of state told NBC’s Cynthia McFadden. The full interview airs Tuesday on NBC’s Nightly News.

At the time, Clinton had already conceded her role as a leading White House hopeful to then-Illinois Sen. Barack Obama in the historic 2008 Democratic campaign.

Clinton describes the exchange with the Obama campaign in her new book hitting stores Tuesday, "Hard Choices." McFadden said Clinton told her the White House did review the book before it was published, but did not request her to take anything out.

Politicos believe the memoir is a prelude to a second run for the Oval Office in 2016. TODAY viewers say that's a given, according to a Facebook survey asking whether they think Clinton will launch another presidential campaign.

Sarah Palin took to Twitter on Monday after a passage from Clinton’s book leaked into the public. The former Alaska governor tweeted that the Obama campaign's 2008 request to go on the attack against her proved Democrats to be the instigators of the real “war on women.”

In her Nightly News interview, Clinton also admits she would advise a younger version of herself, the one who served as first lady, to relax and ease up, especially when it came to criticism.

“I would say that what I have learned and really incorporated since – to take criticism seriously, but not personally, not to be so anxious and worried about everything that everybody says and try to figure out how to incorporate that into your thinking,” she said.

Watch the full interview with Hillary Clinton on Tuesday on NBC’s Nightly News.